January 2010

On planet earth matter can traditionally exist in three physical states or forms; solid, liquid and gas. There are in fact a couple of more states such as plasma and liquid crystal, but let’s not get too technical. Condensation is essentially water changing it physical state of aggregation from gaseous into liquid (guess you’re glad we didn’t get in to the technical parts). One of the most common examples of this is the creation of clouds. As warm air rises to the atmosphere it cools and loses its ability to hold water vapor. The water molecules will then clump together to form cloud droplets, which then of course fall as rain (a phenomenon anyone who has visit England is far too familiar with).